


Julia and the Emperor

by a_t_rain



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-27
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-11-19 14:18:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11315142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/a_t_rain/pseuds/a_t_rain
Summary: Not every Cinderella gets to marry a prince.





	Julia and the Emperor

**Author's Note:**

> A long time ago, I was browsing through old requests from some ficathon or other -- I think it may have been Yuletide letters from a few years back, because I can't find anything similar in the Vorkosigan ficathon prompts -- and someone said they would like to see a story from the point of view of one of the hapless Vor maidens who got paraded before Gregor and, inevitably, rejected. I haven't been able to find the post again and I have no idea who this person was, but if you're out there and reading this, thanks for the inspiration.

Julia had been expecting Lady Alys Vorpatril to be very frightening. She wasn’t. She had invited four of the girls at a time to tea, a few days before the ball, and of course they knew they were being vetted, but Lady Alys somehow made them feel as if it were a very ordinary party among friends, and as if she were genuinely interested in them as _people_.

After half an hour of conversation, Julia began to suspect that Lady Alys _was_ interested in her, rather particularly interested. She wasn’t sure, but she thought it might have something to do with the fact that she didn’t know the people the other girls were gossiping about, but she _did_ read books and pay attention to the news. And talking about what she read had, unexpectedly, made Lady Alys’s eyes light up. _I’m not really that intellectual_ , she thought uncomfortably, _it’s just that I haven’t really had a chance to do anything or meet anybody, and I couldn’t think of anything else to say._

She thought, at first, that maybe Lady Alys didn’t know anything about her past and wasn’t thinking of her as _compromised_ , only then she noticed that Lady Alys had asked all the other girls about their brothers and sisters, and she hadn’t said anything at all about Julia’s brother. There was simply no mention of him, no opportunity to say _I am not ashamed of him, and whatever you might have heard about us is a lie._

Lady Alys pulled her aside as she was putting her wraps on and said, “I think, my dear, that the Emperor might very much enjoy getting to know you. I shall see that he has the opportunity.”

* * *

It was really Julia’s cousin Donna who had insisted that she get her season in town, and who had prevailed upon her brother the Count to invite Julia up for a visit. Her father had thought it a waste of time, but he was willing enough to let her go as long as she was properly chaperoned, and he didn’t have to spend any money on it.

Michel asked her to marry him the day before she left, and she said _I don’t know, give me some time to think_. She didn’t tell her father. He would have said that she ought to say yes, that it was a good offer, as good as she was likely to get. (But Da thought of her as _compromised_ , although he never said so. He’d even tried, in his way, to be kind, promising Julia that no one would ever hurt her again. He hadn’t listened when Julia said _but no one has hurt me, not in the way you think_.)

It was true that Michel was a good man; kind, and responsible. Julia thought maybe it didn’t matter so much that she wasn’t attracted to him _that_ way, because proper Vor girls weren’t even supposed to think about whether they were attracted to men _that_ way. And if she married him, she would be able to leave home for good.

Donna said that it did matter. She said at the very least, Julia ought to take a good look around before she made any decisions, because marriage was a lot harder to get out of than into. Donna had been divorced twice, and she’d had any number of other adventures, so Julia figured she knew what she was talking about.

“You’re a very pretty girl,” remarked Donna, as she dressed Julia’s hair before the ball. (The District was sparsely populated and poor, and ladies’ maids were an unnecessary expense, even for the Count’s sister.) “But you come across as the sweet, shy, modest type, and men don’t usually go for that. They think they _ought_ to, but in real life they don’t.”

“I can’t help that,” said Julia.

“Yes, you can, because you’ve got brains and personality. Let him see that side of you. Make him remember you.”

* * *

It would have been easier, Julia thought, if Donna had been there; but Donna was a divorcée with a _reputation_. Under the slowly loosening social mores of modern Barrayar, she might be invited to other parties at the Residence, but definitely not _this_ kind. Pierre had been invited, but he said on the afternoon of the ball that he really didn’t feel up to it, and he hoped Julia wouldn’t mind if he stayed home. Pierre seldom felt up to anything that involved other people, so this wasn’t much of a surprise, but Julia would have found her cousin’s presence comforting. He was even worse than Julia at small talk, but he was _big_ , and ... and _countly_.

The Emperor turned out to be remarkably good-looking in person, which surprised Julia a little. She was so used to people speaking of him as desirable _because_ he was the Emperor that she hadn’t thought about the possibility that he might be desirable as a man. He was tall and dark, and a little melancholy-looking, rather like Prince Hamlet, or what Julia supposed Prince Hamlet might be like if someone else had taken care of his evil stepfather problem for him. She thought that maybe it wasn’t easy to grow up knowing that someone else had taken care of your evil stepfather problem for you – not if you were a boy, anyway, and _expected_ to handle things for yourself.

He asked her to dance, which was expected, because of course he had to ask all of them to dance over the course of the evening. Julia hid her nervousness and followed his lead, dutifully. It wasn’t really any different from all those times in dance class when you _knew_ your partner didn’t have any particular intentions toward you, so you concentrated on the steps and the music.

Then the Emperor confessed, unexpectedly, “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name when they were announced. Or to be perfectly honest, I’ve forgotten. I should remember them all – if I were any good at this I would – but I never do.”

“Julia,” said Julia, and then felt rather stupid, because of course she _should_ have told him her last name, and also found some way to make it clear that she was just Mademoiselle Vorrutyer and not Lady Anybody.

Before she could correct herself, the Emperor said, “I’m Gregor.”

Julia laughed, and then thought maybe he hadn’t meant it as a joke at all, but rather an invitation to call him by his first name. And then she caught his eyes, which were laughing too, and knew that it had been both.

“What do you think of the ball so far?”

“It’s nice,” said Julia. And then, remembering Donna’s warning that _nice_ wouldn’t be enough, she added, frankly, “But I think if I had to do this every week, I might go mad.”

“Some of us do,” said the Emperor, his face clouding unexpectedly. Julia felt that she had wrong-footed herself again, and then she literally wrong-footed herself, and had to be kept from stumbling by the Emperor’s firm grip on her arm. _Gregor’s_ grip. His hand was just an ordinary hand, very solid and steady. Very _real_ at a moment when everything had begun to seem dreamlike.

“Thanks,” said Julia, a little breathlessly. “I’m not usually this clumsy, I swear, it’s just – you feel awfully _watched_ here. I mean, I don’t literally mean _you_ , because I suppose if y- … if one grew up with it, it would seem normal, but…”

“I understand,” said Gregor. “It doesn’t ever start to seem normal, actually. Just … customary.”

“Oh. I expect it must be rather … difficult.” Julia began to feel that she sounded more and more like an idiot every time she opened her mouth, and resolved not to try to make conversation any more.

“Quite.” The music had stopped; people were drifting away to choose partners for the next dance. “Protocol forbids dancing twice in a row with the same lady, but I hope I may have another dance after my other obligations are discharged?”

“Yes,” said Julia. “ _Yes_.”

* * *

They danced again, less awkwardly this time, as Julia was beginning to have a good sense of how the Emperor talked and moved. She decided that she liked him. It was getting awfully hot in the ballroom, and the musicians were taking a short break. Gregor snagged a couple of lemon ices from a passing waiter, and they went out on the balcony.

“It’s nice out here,” said Julia. “Cooler. It’s – like getting away.” Of course they were still being _watched_ , probably very curiously; but here, they could pretend that they weren’t.

“Yes. I like it out here. People know to leave you alone.”

The thought came to Julia, unbidden, that being Empress would mean no one would leave you alone, ever. She tried not to dwell on the idea; it seemed like presumption to be thinking about that sort of thing, anyway.

“D’you suppose any of the Emperors have ever just … escaped?” Julia wondered. “Gone rappelling off the balcony, or something, and not come back until morning?”

“I’m sure of it,” said Gregor. “What else would the gargoyles be for?” He looked at her as if he were seriously about to propose an escape, and then said, “Do you know, we’ve been talking all this time, and I still don’t know your other name. Not that ‘Julia’ isn’t very nice, but there are times when protocol requires more formality. Protocol is rather a tyrant, as you’ve likely noticed.”

_He’s interested in seeing more of me_ , Julia realized, _or he wouldn’t have any reason to ask_. “Vorrutyer.”

The Emperor was silent for a long moment, and then asked, “What relation to Count Pierre?”

“He’s my cousin.”

“First cousin?”

“Yes. My da’s the old Count's youngest brother.”

“Ah. So you’re Lord Jaques’s daughter. And your mother is also second cousin to Count Pierre's father, isn’t she?”

“Yes, I think so,” said Julia, although she was a little vague about her mother’s side of the family. Her parents had been separated since she was ten, and even before that, Mother hadn’t exactly been _communicative_.

“So that makes us – let me see – third-cousins-once-removed two different ways.”

“Are we really?”

“Yes. Your mother and father are both great-grandchildren of Pierre le Sanguinaire, and my great-grandmother was Pierre’s sister, who married Emperor Dorca. Emperor Yuri’s mother.”

Julia nodded. She’d known all of that, of course; the Vorrutyers were very proud of having an empress in the family, although they tended to be quieter about the fact that the empress in question had been Mad Yuri’s _mother_.

“Yuri didn’t leave descendants, of course. My grandmother was his younger sister, his only full sibling. The only one to survive, I mean. There were several others who were born dead, or died shortly after they were born.”

_Died shortly after they were born_ was often a euphemism, although Julia was sure the Emperor couldn’t possibly mean to imply _that_.

“So that’s why we’re different generations. My grandmother didn’t marry until very late in life. Despite her high birth, no one seems to have thought she was quite ... marriage material ... until Ezar came along and found it useful to take a wife with a better claim to the Imperium than _he_ had.”

Julia hadn’t known this part, probably because nobody got to talk quite so freely about it if they _weren’t_ the Emperor.

“The Silent Empress, they called her. Almost never seen in public after the first year or two of her reign.”

Julia thought about her mother, who had sometimes locked herself in a darkened room for days at a time, ignoring the children. _Mother isn’t well_ , Da had always said. She wondered if the Silent Empress had been like that.

“Are you interested in genealogy?” she said, and then felt stupid again. Of course he had to be interested in genealogy; he was the _Emperor_.

“I’m not sure _interested_ is the right word. Preoccupied. One might even say ... captivated.” He didn’t look as if it were a pleasant sort of captivity. “Well. I think we ought to go in. They’ll be wondering what’s become of me.”

* * *

“He seemed _awfully_ taken with you,” said one of the girls Julia had met at tea, as they were putting on their wraps in the vestibule. “What’s he like? He didn’t talk very much at all when I danced with him.”

“It’s hard to tell,” said Julia, although in fact she was beginning to have some ideas on this point. “He’s quiet.”

“Didn’t look like it,” said the other girl, a little enviously. “Not with you.”

“I expect you’ll be getting an invitation to the Residence for tea,” said one of the others. “That’s the next step.”

* * *

But no invitation came.

Julia began to regret the fact that she’d told Donna all about the ball when she came home that evening, still in the first flush of excitement. Donna had evidently told Pierre, because it was all too obvious that both of her cousins were treating her like someone who’d had a _disappointment_ , trying much too hard to be kind.

“Julia ... do you remember which of the other girls he danced with? After your first dance, I mean, but before you went out on the balcony?”

Donna asked the question casually. Too casually. “You think one of them was gossiping about me?”

“This is an awful, spiteful town, put it that way. And if it looks like he’s favoring one girl over the others – well, that’s just when the harpies _would_ swoop in and try to spoil it.”

“I ... I don’t think so. That wasn’t when he seemed to _change_. It was later.” _Just after he found out my name_ , whispered a small, doubtful voice at the back of her mind. She suppressed the thought. “And I think – if he’d heard anything – he’d at least _ask_ me whether it was true. I think he’s that sort of man.”

Donna still looked skeptical, and Julia supposed that – given certain political events of the recent past – it might be too much to hope that the Emperor _didn’t_ believe everything he was told. But Julia thought not. _He seems like a man who’s anxious to get things right._

“Ju,” said Donna after a moment, “you know that even if any part of it were true, it _wouldn’t_ be your fault, right?”

_Not you, too!_ “It isn’t true.”

“I know. But I mean, if there were anyone _else_ who had ... Never mind. You’re the nicest girl I know, and if there’s anyone who doesn’t see that, they’re fools.”

* * *

“You’ve been moping too much,” said Donna a few days later. “Vorrutyer House isn’t the most cheerful place. How about we go out for a walk and a cup of coffee, just the two of us?”

“All right,” said Julia. She doubted very much that coffee would make her feel better, but Donna had an _I’ve got a secret_ air about her. Julia suspected she was _planning_ something, and didn’t want to spoil it, whatever it was.

* * *

It took Julia a moment to recognize the man sitting at the table in the corner. “ _By!_ ” she said, and rushed forward to hug him.

“Easy now, Ju. Don’t crush me.”

Julia gave her brother a final squeeze and settled into her seat.

He didn’t look well, she realized. Too thin. Eyes bloodshot. _Jittery_.

“So you _are_ glad to see me,” he said. “I thought maybe – You never wrote or called.”

“Da wouldn’t let me, and he made me swear I wouldn’t have anything to do with you before he let me come here – Donna didn’t even tell me you were going to be here, and I’m glad she didn’t, because I would have had to say no.”

“You don’t have to obey Da.”

“Let her be, By,” said Donna quietly. “It isn’t that easy. Not for a girl.”

* * *

Julia hadn’t really meant to tell anybody else about what had happened with the Emperor, much less in a public coffee shop, but By asked how her season was going, and somehow the whole story came spilling out. Her brother had always been easy to talk to; she’d missed that.

“Ju,” said By, “I think what he was trying to tell you is that he likes _boys_.”

Well, that would make it ... not her fault, at least. “You think so?”

“Why else would he have been bringing up his Vorrutyer ancestry? Everyone knows we’re a little ... bent.”

“But we aren’t,” said Julia, “not in a way that makes it impossible to get married, anyway.” _She_ hadn’t been totally sure she liked boys until a few days ago, but she was sure _now_ , which made the whole thing seem particularly unfair.

“Of course. You know that, and I know that, but it doesn’t change the fact that the family reputation is otherwise. And going on about his grandmother-who-no-one-thought-was-marriage-material, and hinting there was some sort of scandal attached to her ... It fits.”

It made sense, of a sort. _But I’m not such a country mouse that I can’t tell when a man is attracted to me and when he isn’t_ , Julia thought, _and he was attracted. He was._

* * *

“Can I stay with you?” Julia asked impulsively, when Donna got up to use the ladies’ room.

“What?” said By. He threw a quick glance around the coffee shop, as if hoping for rescue.

“On your couch, or something. Just for a while. I don’t think Da really wants me back, and Donna and Pierre have been decent about letting me visit, but I can tell Pierre would rather be let alone, and Donna hasn’t got a place of her own. I was thinking maybe I could … I don’t know …” Julia’s imagination failed her. _Keep house for you?_ Not likely. Prole girls, like the one who had served them their coffee, had jobs, but she didn’t even know how one went about _getting_ a job.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” said By.

“Why not?” Julia demanded.

“Because – because I’m not living in the best neighborhood. Nor, frankly, spending time with the best people. I’d rather you stayed away from it all.”

“But _you’re_ not staying away from it all.”

“No.” He didn’t say _but you’re a girl_ , which was something; but he also didn’t reconsider, or offer any further explanation.

* * *

“Do you see much of By?” Julia asked Donna, afterward.

“Now and again. He comes and goes. He’s got his own crowd of friends. I don’t care for most of them.”

“Does he … always look this bad?”

“Actually, he looked better today than he has in months. He might’ve been hung over, but he wasn’t drunk or high. I think he was making an effort for your sake.”

“Oh,” said Julia. “It’s ... that bad, then?”

“If he carries on like this for a few more years,” said Donna bleakly, “he’ll kill himself.”

_If I got married_ , Julia thought, _I wouldn’t have to obey Da any more. I could talk to my brother, and maybe even come to see him sometimes..._

She went up to her room and began to write to Michel.

* * *

A week later, a seemingly unconnected incident took place at a party thrown by Lord Oliver Vorhewitt, one of the city’s most notorious rakes.

Lord Oliver and a male friend appeared on the balcony of Vorhewitt House, both stark naked, and simulated all manner of sexual positions, to the delight of the crowd. At least, Lev Brodsky, the ImpSec agent charged with monitoring the activities of Lord Oliver’s merry band of companions, devoutly _hoped_ they were simulating. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about, especially after the friend washed off his cock in a glass of wine, raised the glass and shouted ‘To the health of the Emperor!’ and drank it down.

* * *

“Hullo, Lev,” said Lord Oliver’s friend, “did you enjoy the show?”

“You know,” said Lev, unsmiling, “that was very close to treason.”

“Oh, hardly. No actual Emperors were harmed in the drinking of this toast, and all that.”

“Don’t be a fool, Vorrutyer,” said Lev quietly.

Vorrutyer seemed slightly taken aback – as well he ought to be, because Lev was getting perilously close to breaking his cover – but kept his composure. “Would you care to tell me which law we broke?”

“Oh, you didn’t do anything actionable. Clever of you. But there’s such a thing as being _too_ clever. People tend to notice … implications.”

“Either he really _is_ a homosexual,” said Vorrutyer, unexpectedly, “in which case it isn’t slander, or else he as good as called my sister a mutie, and in that case I don’t _care_.”

“You’re drunk,” said Lev, privately thinking that there was more than a touch of paranoia in the Vorrutyer lineage, and that he would have to mention the remark in his next report. The possibility that the Emperor had actually called Vorrutyer’s sister a mutie was, of course, too absurd to take seriously.

“Oh, yes,” Vorrutyer agreed. “Very. D’you want some of this? It isn’t bad. Different bottle than we were using before.”

Lev took a swallow of wine from the proffered bottle. His ImpSec handler would have had fits, but there were certain things they would never understand at Cockroach Central. “Take it from me,” he said, “you don’t always want to act on ideas you have when you’re drunk.”

“What makes you think it was my idea and not Oliver’s?”

“It wasn’t either of your ideas. Sir Charles Sedley did _exactly_ the same thing. In 1663.” (Lev had just looked this up on his wristcom.)

“Well,” said Vorrutyer, “they do say there’s nothing new under the sun.”

“Perhaps. But I doubt you came up with the idea by coincidence. Where did you read about it?”

“Samuel Pepys’s diary,” Vorrutyer admitted. “I didn’t think anyone else here would have read it.”

“No,” said Lev. “Lord Oliver doesn’t read. You do. And _that_ is how I knew you were the instigator. Do you know how Sir Charles Sedley ended his days?”

“Syphilis?”

“Member of Parliament. Quite a distinguished one. Said to have died like a philosopher. What do you make of that?”

“... Having exhausted all of the other possible vices, he decided to try respectability?”

It was, Lev thought, as plausible an explanation as any. The Galactopedia entry on Sir Charles Sedley had provided plenty of information about the _whats_ and _whens_ of his career, but it had not exactly been forthcoming about the _whys_. “Ever think about it, yourself?”

“ _I_ haven’t exhausted all the other possible vices yet.”

No, Lev supposed, it wasn’t time yet, although he had no idea which vices young Vorrutyer imagined he _hadn’t_ exhausted. Now and again one found a boy one could save – and who was worth saving – but they had to come to it on their own.


End file.
